37

THE SECRETS OF ADAM

The Reverend Marmaduke Carver wished also to find absolute confirmation that the southern part of Armenia Major, modern eastern Turkey, was the authentic site of the Garden of Eden. Writing in A Discourse of the Terrestrial Paradise, he notes: “Tradition successfully continued in these parts [i.e., after the Flood], that hereabout was the place of Adam’s Paradise,”1 adding:

The Author that affirms this is Methodius. . . . Now this ancient Author (in lib. Revel.) speaking of the death of Seth, and the secession of his posterity from the posterity of Cain, hath among other things this remarkable passage: Mortuo Seth separavit se Cognatio ejus à sobole Caini, redierúntque ad natale solum. Nam & Pater corum vivens prohibuerat nè miscerentur. Et habitavit Cognatio Seth in Cordan monte, Paradiso terrestri proximo.2

The Latin text translates as: “[After the death of Adam] Seth separated from the issue of Cain and returned to his native country, for his father had forbidden their lives to mix. And Seth lived with his kin on Mount Cordan, next to the terrestrial Paradise.”

Having cited Methodius’s words, Carver notes: “If the terrestrial paradise were near the Mount Cordan, and that Mount Cordan or Gordiæus stood in the same place where Ptolemy hath set it; then we may rest secured, that the happy seat of our First Parents Habitation was at or about the very place that we have described.”3

THE REVELATIONS OF METHODIUS

Very pertinent words indeed, so who was Methodius and where was Mount Cordan, or Gordiæus? Methodius of Olympus was a theologian and prolific writer of the early fourth century (he died ca. AD 311). The quotation cited by Carver, or variations of it, is from a work accredited to Methodius entitled the Apocalypse or Revelations (Revelatio). It contains a commentary on the book of Genesis and an account of the coming of the Antichrist and the inevitable end of the world. However, there is a problem, as there is no record of Methodius ever having written such a book. Moreover, it is quite clear from its contents that the Apocalypse was written in response to the Arab invasion of Asia Minor in the second half of the seventh century AD, three hundred years after Methodius’s death. In other words, its author was most likely a Christian writer of the seventh century who wanted to bolster the tract’s value by accrediting it to Methodius.

Exactly who penned this pseudepigraphical, or falsely attributed, work is unclear (the author is now referred to as Pseudo-Methodius), although what is important is that it was written originally in Syriac, the language of Northern Mesopotamia, meaning that it could well have originated from somewhere close to the city of Edessa, modern Şanlıurfa. This seems certain, as just a year or two after its initial circulation, modified versions, known today as the Edessene Apocalypse, were being produced in the area, quite possibly in one of the monasteries locally.4

WHERE IS CORDAN MONTE?

Which version of the Apocalypse the Reverend Marmaduke Carver consulted for his book is not cited. Most likely it was a volume in the York Minster Library, where the churchman did much of his research for A Discourse of the Terrestrial Paradise. Yet if we accept Carver’s translation as authentic (and I have certainly found a Latin version of the Apocalypse with a date of 1593 that contains these exact same lines5), it implies that in the late seventh century an accomplished theological writer, living close to Edessa and the site of Göbekli Tepe, possessed knowledge implying that Seth, his father Adam, his mother Eve, and their extended family group inhabited “Cordan monte,” or Mount Cordan. Even more significant is his conviction that this mountain was situated proximo, or “next,” to the terrestrial Paradise; that is, the Garden of Eden.

Carver assumed that “Cordan monte” was a reference to the Gordiæus Mountains (also written Gordyene or Corduene), which, he says, the Greco-Roman geographer Ptolemy (AD 90–168) located in the district of Armenia Major. Apparently, Ptolemy saw them as at “the same latitude with the springs of the Tigris: Strabo joins them with Mount Taurus.”6 Today, this mountain range is identified with the Kardu Mountains, which are farther south and include Mount al-Judi, the traditional resting place of the ark. Yet the classical writers located the Gordiæus Mountains north of here, in the Eastern Taurus range, which borders the plain of Mush on its southern side.

So this fixed the mythical world of Adam, Eve, Seth, and their extended family firmly within reach not just of the source of the Tigris, but also Sim Mountain, where Shem and his sons settled, and the Yeghrdut monastery was founded in the fourth century AD. Is this where Adam and Eve came to rest after being expelled from the Garden of Righteousness, somewhere in the vicinity of Yeghrdut, where afterward Shem established his own home? Interestingly, it was Shem who Noah sent to retrieve Adam’s skull from its place of burial in order that it might be brought on to the ark,7 even though the bodies of Eve, Seth, and all the other early patriarchs were left in situ. Apparently, the site of Adam’s burial was the “Cave of Treasures,” located on a “Holy Mountain”8 that was said to overlook the site of the original Garden of Eden.9 Did this cave exist somewhere near Yeghrdut, and could it be found today?

Of course, the historical validity of any such material is at best questionable, and yet there is no denying that the power of belief in a fictional mythos can be just as real as if not more real than, a tangible, mundane reality. Moreover, mythical data can encode within it kernels of truth that can manifest in the real world, and so nothing should be ignored or dismissed out of hand without due consideration.

THE SEED OF SETH

So to suddenly find that Adam and Eve’s homeland after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden was somewhere in the vicinity of the Eastern Taurus Mountains was very compelling indeed. Moreover, the introduction of Seth to the story was also highly significant, as it was the “seed of Seth,” or Seth’s descendants, who were to inherit God’s kingdom after the death of Adam. This belief is derived from a passage in Genesis 4:25, which reads:

And Adam again knoweth his wife, and she beareth a son, and calleth his name Seth, “for God hath appointed for me another seed instead of Abel:” for Cain had slain him.

The words “another seed” is interpreted as meaning that through Seth, the third son of Adam, God created a new branch of humanity that some Jews and early Christians believed was the only truly righteous tribe of God. Everybody else was descended of Cain, Seth’s evil brother, and was thus wicked by descent.

Many Gnostic sects that thrived in the first five centuries of the Christian era saw Seth as the first of three manifestations of Christ himself. The others would seem to have been Shem, the son of Noah, and Jesus Christ himself. Indeed, the heavenly Seth was seen to have manifested in this world through the incarnation of Jesus, the two being synonymous with each other.

THE NAG HAMMADI LIBRARY

Gnostic followers of Seth, or Sethites as they were known, flourished among religious sects and secret groups that thrived in regions such as Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Armenia. They had their own gospels, or scriptures, many of which were found together inside a cave near Nag Hammadi in Middle Egypt in 1945. What became known as the Nag Hammadi library is the most important collection of Gnostic and Sethite texts ever studied. One theory is that the codices may have belonged to a local Coptic monastery and were buried following Bishop Athanasius’s condemnation of the use of non-canonical holy books, that is, those not officially recognized by the Roman Church, in AD 367.

Among the Sethian titles in the Nag Hammadi collection are the Three Steles of Seth, Zostrianos (some see Zostrianos as a manifestation of Zoroaster, the divine leader of the Zoroastrians), the Second Treatise of the Great Seth, the Paraphrase of Shem (or Seth), Allogenes, the Trimorphic Prottenoia, and Melchizedek. These Gnostic gospels have some very interesting things to say about Seth, who is occasionally confused or identified with Shem,10 the son of Noah. For instance, it is suggested that before his death, Adam transmitted to Seth certain matters concerning everything from the divine or angelic nature of humankind to the movement of the stars and heavenly bodies, and the knowledge of a coming catastrophe involving fire and water. These “secrets of Adam” are said to have been recorded before being hidden away until humanity was ready to receive them. Some of these secrets were to be revealed, periodically, through the appearance of four Phosters, that is, revealers or illuminators, who would incarnate for this express purpose,11 while others would remain hidden until the right time for their discovery.

THE PILLARS OF SETH

What intrigued me most about this tradition is that Seth apparently inscribed the secrets of Adam on pillars or wrote them down on stone tablets, called steles, which were then deposited somewhere in the ancient world, usually either on or within a mountain cave of some description. For instance, the Jewish writer Flavius Josephus (AD 37–100), in his book The Antiquities of the Jews, talks about Seth leaving behind children, who “inhabited the same country without dissensions, and in a happy condition.” They were “the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and their order.” He goes on to write:

And that their inventions might not be lost before they were sufficiently known, upon Adam’s prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone: they inscribed their discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit those discoveries to mankind; and also inform them that there was another pillar of brick erected by them. Now this remains in the land of Siriad to this day.12

Here the secrets of Adam are inscribed on pillars, one of brick, the other of stone, which are erected to preserve this knowledge beyond the coming cataclysm involving both a conflagration and deluge. So where exactly is Siriad (also written Seiris or Sirian), the named location of the inscribed pillars?

THE LAND OF SIRIAD

Because of the confusion between Seth, the son of Adam, and Seth, the brother of Osiris in Egyptian mythology, it has long been assumed that Siriad means Egypt. Here the inhabitants venerated the bright star Sirius, a similar sounding name to Siriad, while the pillars of Seth themselves were identified with the Great Pyramid and its neighbor, the Second Pyramid. This was a surmise assumed by the scholarly world following the publication in 1737 of a very popular translation of Josephus’s works by English theologian, historian, and mathematician William Whiston (1667–1752).13 Although Whiston did not believe that the pillars of Seth could have survived the conflagration and Flood, he did identify the land of Siriad as Egypt.14

Yet this connection with Egypt is a misnomer, for even if Seth did somehow become associated with the Great Pyramid, we know that Adam’s son “lived,” as Pseudo-Methodius tells us, somewhere in Armenia, which, following the carving up of the Greek Empire after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, came under the control of the Syrian Seleucid Empire. Even with the dissolution of the empire in 190 BC, two Seleucid satraps, or governors, revolted and assumed control of Armenia Major and Armenia Minor (or Lesser Armenia), located west of the Euphrates River, and proclaimed themselves kings. Hellenic Greek practices and customs continued to thrive in Armenia and Northern Mesopotamia with all its Syrian influences. What is more, Edessa’s kings, who were mostly called Abgar or Manu, kept their links with Syriac culture and tradition, and retained Syrian as the main written language.

There is really nothing to link the pillars of Seth with Egypt, and all the indications are that Siriad is a straightforward reference to Syria. In fact, before William Whiston’s translation of Josephus’s works, earlier translators did not hesitate to link Siriad with Syria. D. Eduardi Bernardi, for instance, in a translation of Josephus published at Oxford in 1687, discusses whether Siriad means Syriac in origin or belonging to Syria.15

Elsewhere there is additional evidence that Seth was depositing the “secrets of Adam” closer to home. For instance, at the end of the Latin Vita Adae et Evae, the “Life of Adam and Eve,” following Adam’s death Eve instructs their children to write on tablets of stone and clay everything they have learned both from her and their father. During the coming cataclysm, that which is written on stone will survive the Flood, while that which is written on clay will survive the conflagration. The implication is that Seth then conceals the tablets in the same vicinity; in other words, somewhere close to the terrestrial Paradise.16

THE ROCK OF TRUTH

The Apocalypse of Adam, one of the Gnostic texts included in the Nag Hammadi library, contains the revelation that “Adam taught his son Seth in the seven hundredth year.” Here Adam tells Seth to record all of his and Eve’s experiences in the Garden of Paradise (see figure 37.1). This is to include the revelations conveyed to them by three angelic informants regarding the future adventures of the elect, that is, the seed of Seth, along with knowledge of the imminent cataclysm of fire and flood, and details of the coming savior, who is Seth himself. Collectively, this wisdom is described as the “hidden knowledge of Adam.” The reader is told also that a special revelation is to be written “on a high mountain, upon a rock of truth.”17

Figure 37.1. Eve at the Fountain, by English visionary painter John Martin (1789–1854), one of twenty illustrations done in mezzotint for the 1827 edition of John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Even though the whereabouts of the land of Siriad, or Seiris, is nowhere given in the Gnostic gospels, Adam’s secret writings are repeatedly said to be hidden in a holy mountain. The work known as the Allogenes, for instance, proclaims: “Write down [the things that I Allogenes, a name of Seth] shall [tell] you and of which I shall remind you for the sake of those who will be worthy after you. And you will leave this book upon a mountain and you will adjure the guardian ‘Come, O Dreadful One.’”18

THE GOSPEL OF THE EGYPTIANS

Then in The Gospel of the Egyptians, also from the Nag Hammadi library, we read:

This is the book which the great Seth wrote, and placed in high mountains on which the sun has not risen, nor is it possible. And since the days of the prophets, and the apostles, and the preachers, the name has not at all risen upon their hearts, nor is it possible. And ear has not heard it.
    The great Seth wrote this book with letters in one hundred and thirty years. He placed it in the mountain that is called Charaxio, in order that, at the end of the times and the eras . . . it may come forth and reveal this incorruptible, holy race of the great savior, and those who dwell with them in love.19

These words are greatly enigmatic, for they speak of a book concealed “in” a mountain, the location of which, and even the name thereof, has not been uttered since the time of Seth. Yet then, as if pronounced as part of some magical spell, the name of the mountain is finally revealed: Charaxio. But where is Charaxio? Was this the true hiding place of the secrets of Adam?

THE SEARCH FOR CHARAXIO

Charaxio is said to be located “where the sun has not risen, nor is it possible,” a clear allusion to the Land of Darkness, the otherworldly realm in the extreme north associated with Alexander the Great’s quest to find the Fountain of Life and Gilgamesh’s search to find the plant of immortality. It was here too that the god El had his abode and the two hundred rebel Watchers made the decision to descend to the plains below and take mortal wives. As Belgium-based Near Eastern scholar Edward Lipinski determined, the Land of Darkness existed beyond the virtually impenetrable barrier created by the Eastern Taurus Mountains in Armenia Major.

Guy G. Stroumsa, a Gnostic scholar with the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and Oxford University, England, has made a study of the mysterious mountain called Charaxio. He says that various attempts have been made to find its location. However, because Charaxio appears under this name only in The Gospel of the Egyptians, it has proved near impossible to trace. This said, the abbreviated form, Charax, does appear in antiquity.20 John Lemprière’s Bibliotheca Classica: A Classical Dictionary, published in 1788, reveals just one entry under this name, which is “a town in Armenia.”21

That Charaxio might have been situated in Armenia makes sense of the fact that it was said to exist where the sun doesn’t shine; that is, in the Land of Darkness, in the far north. Stroumsa himself took note of this, comparing Charaxio’s description with “the dark regions mentioned in 1 Enoch 78:3”22; that is, the book of Enoch, which, as we have seen, can be linked with the Land of Darkness beyond the Tigris Tunnel. Realizing this, Stroumsa alludes to traditions regarding the prophet Enoch being handed books from his forefathers Adam and Seth, which he says were concealed on Mount Ararat in Armenia, so that they might remain safe during the coming deluge.23

MOUNT SIR

Pushing the matter still further, Stroumsa notes that “the link between Seiris (the land of the sons of Seth and the place of the Steles) and Mount Ararat” finds expression in another Gnostic text called The Hypostatis of the Archons, which is also found in the Nag Hammadi library. He continues: “Noah is asked by the demiurge (the creator of the physical world) to set the ark upon Mount Sir. . . . In some milieus, the mountain could have been given the name of the land in which the books were written Σειρ(ις)”24; that is, Seir(is).

So Guy Stroumsa proposes that Charaxio, Seiris, and Mount Sir (Seir) are all one and the same or that they are conflated forms of an original mountain of Seth, which he identifies as Mount Ararat, since this would have been the safest place for something to have been hidden with foresight of the coming conflagration and deluge. This is, in my opinion, smart thinking, yet once again we are back to Mount Ararat sucking up every legend and tradition that comes along, simply because of the Christian fixation with its being the Place of Descent of Noah’s ark. Just one Gnostic work actually mentions Mount Ararat by name, this being the Pistis Sophia contained in the Askew Codex, a fifth-century parchment manuscript of Coptic origin now in the British Library. Yet it speaks only of Jesus in his spiritual form causing the patriarch Enoch to write the so-called Books of Yeu (or Jeu) when in Paradise, and then getting him to deposit them for safekeeping “in the rock Ararad,” where a heavenly ruler is appointed to watch over them during the coming flood.25 It does not mention Adam or Seth, and certainly makes no direct reference to Charaxio, Seiris, or Mount Sir.

So I looked again for any elucidation on the place-name Charaxio and found something very interesting indeed. I discovered that the Araxes River, which was also known by the abbreviated form of Arax, was itself once called the Charax,26 making sense of John Lemprière’s entry in his Bibliotheca Classica regarding a town called Charax in Armenia. Since we know that the Araxes takes its rise on Bingöl Mountain, the Abus Mons of antiquity, there has to be a good chance that it is also Charaxio, which with the –io suffix gives it the meaning “belonging to Charax”; that is, the Araxes River.

Charaxio’s identification with Bingöl Mountain is strengthened by the words of Stroumsa himself, who concludes for perfectly good reasons that Charaxio, Seiris, and Mount Sir are all synonymous with Bingöl’s main rival, Mount Ararat. Take Mount Ararat out of the picture and you are still left with his firm conviction that somewhere in Armenia Major is the real Charaxio. So was Bingöl Mountain really where Seth concealed the secrets of Adam on pillars or steles in order that they might be revealed in the final days? It is interesting that John Lemprière’s entry for Abus Mons reads “a mountain in Syria, where the Euphrates rises.”27 It confirms that in classical times this region of Armenia Major was still classed as Syria, the ancient land of Siriad or Seiris, where Josephus tells us that Seth concealed his pillars of knowledge and his descendants continued to live after this time. Yet what about Mount Sir—where was that located?

MONS VICTORIALIS

A tract entitled Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum, a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, which circulated among a Christian sect known as the Arians during the fifth century, alludes to a lost book or books of Seth. It states that once a year a group of twelve scholars would climb a mountain called Mons Victorialis, the “Victorious Mountain” or “Mountain of Victory,” on which were abundant “fountains” and beautiful trees, and here they would enter a cave and examine an original work written by Seth.28

An eighth-century Syriac text known as the “Revelation of the Magi”29 contains the same basic story, although here the twelve scholars are twelve Magi, who are both kings and “wise men,”30 descendants of Seth,31 who live in the land of Shir (i.e., Sir or Seiris).32 The book takes the form of commandments given by Adam to Seth, who records them in written form. It speaks of a sign that will herald the birth of a god in human form, with that sign being a star in the likeness of a small child.33

Every year the Magi would purify themselves in a spring and then ascend the Mountain of Victory and pray in silence before entering the cave, which is identified as the Cave of Treasures of the Hidden Mysteries.34 (See figure 37.2.) Here Adam and Eve had lived, just beyond the Garden of Eden, and after their deaths it had become the home of Seth, his family, and their descendants.

This same settlement of the antediluvian patriarchs, as we have already seen, was said by Pseudo-Methodius to have been located near Mount Cordan, in the Eastern Taurus range, close to the Yeghrdut monastery and the plain of Mush.

Inside the cave the Magi consulted the books of Seth containing the secrets of Adam and watched for the prophesied sign before returning to their kingdoms to instruct those of their people who wished to learn of the “hidden mysteries.” The whole process was repeated across many generations, and when one of the twelve died, either a son or a close relative would replace him.35

The text alludes also to a book of revelations written by Seth, which states that Adam had originally seen the sign, the original star child, hanging over the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, but that it had disappeared when he committed the first sin.36 The “Revelation of the Magi” then reveals how a star appears in the sky, before entering the cave, inviting the Magi to do the same. Inside they find not a star, but the likeness of a small child, who introduces himself as the Son of God. The wise men are instructed to follow the star so that they might worship him in human form. They are then led in a quite fantastic manner first to Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem, where the star enters a cave and becomes the infant Jesus, at which point the story reverts to the account of the Nativity as told in the gospel of Matthew (2:1–12). Eventually, the Magi return to the land of Shir, and in time the apostle Judas Thomas arrives to convert the people through “mighty deeds”37; and here he now baptizes and anoints the Magi.

Figure 37.2. Twelfth-century representation of Adam and Eve inside the Cave of Treasures, located within Mons Victorialis, the Mountain of Victory. Here lived the “children of Seth” until the time of the Flood. Its discovery will reveal the books of Seth containing the secrets of Adam.

Although there have been attempts to identify the land of Shir with locations as far away as northeast Iran and even China,38 it was likely located in the vicinity of the Cave of Treasures and, of course, the Garden of Eden. What is more, the Mountain of Victory, or Mons Victorialis, features in the sixth century Syriac text entitled the book of the Cave of Treasures as a name of the “Mountain of God” on which Adam, Eve, and their extended family—the “children of Seth”—live prior to the time of the Flood. These “children” constitute the entire line of early patriarchs and their families, from Seth right down to Noah.39 Enoch is there also, ministering unto God inside the cave and burying his father, Jared, all this coming before his celebrated translation to Paradise in the company of angels (see figure 37.3). According to the book of the Cave of Treasures, at the time of the Flood, Shem, the son of Noah, returns to the cave to retrieve the body of Adam, which is then taken aboard the ark—the bodies of the other patriarchs being left behind in the cave.40

So was the land of Shir to be found somewhere in the vicinity of the plain of Mush, the most obvious site of the Garden of Eden? Was it to be identified with Sim Mountain, where Shem is said to have established a settlement after leaving the ark and where Thaddeus deposited the holy relics beneath Yeghrdut’s evergreen tree in the first century AD? Remember, the alternative form of the Sumerian word for snake, muš, which might well be the root behind the Mush place-name, is šir, pronounced shir in the Akkadian language. Was the ancient Armenian kingdom of Taron, which included the plain of Mush, once known as the land of Šir, or Shir; that is, the land of the snake? This has to remain a very distinct possibility indeed.

If not in the vicinity of Yeghrdut, was the Mountain of Victory synonymous with Bingöl Mountain and Abus Mons, the best candidate by far for Charaxio, the mountain where The Gospel of the Egyptians tells us Seth hid his holy book, or books, containing the secrets of Adam? Is this where the Cave of Treasures will be found? Both sites, Yeghrdut and Bingöl, which are visible from each other, might easily have played some dual role in the construction of the Jewish, Gnostic, and later Christian myths concerning the true location not only of the original Garden of Eden but also where Adam and Eve’s descendants, the “children of Seth,” are said to have lived on the “holy mountain” of God. No other geographical region makes sense of all of these disparate stories, showing us quite clearly that in Judeo-Christian tradition this was where the events of the book of Genesis were played out, no more than a couple of hundred miles away from Göbekli Tepe.

So what exactly are the secrets of Adam? Can we go on to determine what Seth actually recorded, either in book form or in stone? As we see next, Adam’s secrets might well turn out to contain forbidden knowledge regarding the angelic origins of humankind.

Figure 37.3. The patriarch Enoch is translated to Paradise after being anointed by the angel Michael and becoming like an angel himself.